Rich G
TVWBB Honor Circle
I did this a couple of years ago on a particularly hot day (POSTED HERE), and with the recent heat here, I used this setup to bake my weekly bread batch again. Pretty much the same setup..... Step one, roll out ol' Red and get some briqs going
Once those were lit, they were dumped over about 2/3 of a chimney of unlit charcoal that was spread in a 3/4 moon around the outside of the kettle (trying to keep direct heat on the stone to a minimum). Stone in, lid on, and preheat for about 35 minutes. Thermo was at 495 on the KP, and the stone was temping around the same, so I slid the slashed loaf onto the stone, and covered it with an inverted roaster to trap steam for 20 minutes
Removed the roaster, rotated the bread 180 degrees, and let it go another 25 minutes (with a rotation about halfway through)
You can see from the above pic some signs that there's too much bottom heat (hint, lower left corner), and indeed the bottom of this loaf took a bit of a beating. The bread is just great, and for those who don't like a little extra flavor on their crust, well, the bread knife makes quick work of that!
I was able to keep loaf #2 from burning on the bottom by placing both my round pizza tray as well as one of my pizza peels under it after the first 20 minutes where it was covered. This tempered the delivery of heat from below enough that, while darker than my oven loaves, was not close to burnt.
Yesterday hit 108° (not a huge deal for some of you, but that's the highest number I've seen on a thermometer since we moved here in 1998.) We also had our first close fire of the season in the county park that's less than 2 mi away......huge response from many local fire departments and Cal Fire got it under control quickly, though there were evacuation orders given before containment.
Stay safe out there folks!
R
Once those were lit, they were dumped over about 2/3 of a chimney of unlit charcoal that was spread in a 3/4 moon around the outside of the kettle (trying to keep direct heat on the stone to a minimum). Stone in, lid on, and preheat for about 35 minutes. Thermo was at 495 on the KP, and the stone was temping around the same, so I slid the slashed loaf onto the stone, and covered it with an inverted roaster to trap steam for 20 minutes
Removed the roaster, rotated the bread 180 degrees, and let it go another 25 minutes (with a rotation about halfway through)
You can see from the above pic some signs that there's too much bottom heat (hint, lower left corner), and indeed the bottom of this loaf took a bit of a beating. The bread is just great, and for those who don't like a little extra flavor on their crust, well, the bread knife makes quick work of that!
I was able to keep loaf #2 from burning on the bottom by placing both my round pizza tray as well as one of my pizza peels under it after the first 20 minutes where it was covered. This tempered the delivery of heat from below enough that, while darker than my oven loaves, was not close to burnt.
Yesterday hit 108° (not a huge deal for some of you, but that's the highest number I've seen on a thermometer since we moved here in 1998.) We also had our first close fire of the season in the county park that's less than 2 mi away......huge response from many local fire departments and Cal Fire got it under control quickly, though there were evacuation orders given before containment.
Stay safe out there folks!
R
